Novel Treatments / 5280: Arrival of the fittest
ARRIVAL OF THE FITTEST
I can still taste the salt on my tongue. The water’s not helping wash away the spiking tastes of these salted peanuts. It was a small bag of peanuts, a familiar mid-flight appetizer. I decided on water after I noticed my hands were getting clammy. I guess it is a good thing I didn’t get a rum and Coke. Luckily the water helped me relax. That and the anxiety pill, third one today. The flight attendant is pleasant as I hand her the now empty bag with blue and white stripes. Her wrinkles revealed with her smile. Why is she so happy? What is there to smile about? You have to wait on people at 30,000 feet. Getting off the plane I give her a smile of my own, counterfeit of course. My first steps into Denver and I already feel like this is a bad idea. I’m perplexed and uncomfortable. My mind filled with visions of Shelby and my mom. I can even remember the face I last saw before I left for Chicago, a stale white woman at the gas station near my parent’s house. She was old and grey, probably dead now. I peak out of the door from the gate before I exit. No one proverbial is waiting. Not that there would be. Walking through the terminal overwhelms me, lots of past memories not worth mentioning stabbing me in the chest. The pain is harsh this late in the evening.
I walk quickly towards the tram, my head down. Eye contact is too much right now. Reminiscences of Shelby and I taking a trip together when we were happy, her smile still fresh in my mind like it always is. I haven’t been able to shake my thoughts of her for over a year. If I see anyone who resembles her then I am done for. I make it to the tram without incident, luckily. I could peel my skin off on the trip to the main terminal. It is filled with children running around and adults reading magazines and newspapers, isolated from the situation. I notice a couple kissing while the tram comes to a stop, the sight causing my hands to tremble. Emotions I miss, I have been hollow for an extensive time. Riding the escalator up to the lobby consists of more kissing from the duo, I try not to stare. I miss that feeling they share. Seeing people make out in public bothers me now. The public displays of affection constantly ignored by the masses. How do people not notice? Am I the only one? I can’t stop observing. I think about the couple, their eyes closed, dumb looks on their faces, their tongues and lips touch repeatedly. I cringe and try to look away. I feel the same sickness in my stomach while walking pass another couple, making out and hugging, love makes me sick. I want to puke but it would draw a lot of attention. They are a young couple, attractive and tone with tan skin, standing in front of me holding each other close, faces locked together. I fell like I should stop and pull them apart, but I just walk past, holding my head down. Time will tell if this couple will make it. Maybe next time the guy will be kissing someone else when he arrives from a flight. I always see a lot of this behavior in airports when people reunite. A reflection of Shelby crosses my mind again, her beautiful eyes and smile. Her long black hair falling gently over her face, I would have brushed it back with my hand if I were to kiss her in this lobby. Everyone could watch I wouldn’t mind. At least I would be happy and warm. She will not be here to greet me today or any day in the future. She is only a memory. The one memory I seem to hold on to more then the one of my mother. My mother, the other sad tail in a life that seemed full of them, I miss her like I miss my happiness.
Sadness sets in as I step onto the escalator. The things I can not expose, my deep dark secrets. I sit against the edge of the rubber hand rail down to the baggage claim with my eyes focused on the metal plates carrying me downward. Maybe my pants will get caught and I will be pulled underneath to my death. I doubt it. I can still feel that my hair is damp with sweat from sleeping against the window of the plane, in the unfavorable climate of hot air and bad breath. The guy next to me was a heavy breather, it was hard to ignore. Thankfully I took my first two anxiety pills before boarding. I would have smothered my neighbor with the tiny pillow provided. My back is sore, stiff even. I try to stretch it out passing the bottom of the escalator, it isn’t helping. I don’t care much for air travel and how little intimate room they give. The typical flight attendant places a lot of emphasis on being cheerful when I know they are dark and sad, like me. I admit that the attendant on my plane ride was different. She made my flight pleasant, a first for me. Maybe it was just the pills. I drank two rum and cokes in the airport bar before the trip to stay composed. The day started off well back in Chicago, a few cigarettes, a phone call to Caleb, and my rum and cokes. I can picture the beautiful drink in my hand right now, soothing me. The bar tender was generous with the spiced rum, another first. He glanced at me sitting alone and being a mind reader he poured a lot of the bottle in my glass, mixing it with a straw. I gave him a $10 tip. Maybe I should have left $20 for his kindness. Oh well. I really didn’t want to fly today, I felt compelled to. Growing up my family never flew for trips, we always drove. My father would pack up our old Dodge Caravan and we would head out into the open road. My father never said a word, he just drive and drank coffee. He hated trips, unless they were for work. We never accompanied him on those quests. I wish I were on a road trip right now, even though I didn’t pay much for the flight and it would have taken me 18 hours to drive to Denver from Chicago. At least I could have been alone in the car. No loud breathers sucking up all the fucking air. The long ride back would have been a bore. I could have easily convinced myself to turn the car into on coming traffic, ending my madness and reuniting me with my mother. Better that I fly, I suppose. Reality begins to set in as I pass under a sign that reads “Welcome to Denver, The Mile High City”, the city that took my soul. This is how it has been since my mother died. Alone. I have been alone and living life in thought. It’s terrifying at times, but at least I know where I am. Alone.
I instantly notice the giant smile on Caleb’s face as he walks towards me in the baggage claim. He reminds me of a mellow traveler, just here for the experience. He is high for sure. I can tell by his facial expression. I am curious to why he is so happy. We haven’t spoken for more then ten minutes in the past 8 months. We are old friends but I plan to stay alone as much as possible. He has his black aviator sunglasses on, indoors. He compliments his shades with a pair of flower covered board shorts and brown house shoes. Definitely high. He was at the lake when I called him earlier to give my flight information. His face appears tan with a giant white smile, a mask hiding his true life ambitions. He looks like the executives I work with, always tan, big bright smiles, false sense of interpersonal relationship. I can smell the combination of musky cologne and marijuana. I gag once he reaches me, the smell overwhelming.
“How the fuck are you bro?” Caleb grabs my head and pulls me in for a hug. His muscular body feels warm. I can smell the musk better now, it’s stiff. It bites my nose and my eyes are burned.
“I’m doing good Caleb” I answer as he squeezes me into his chest harder.
Caleb and I have been friends since the 8th grade. His parents are missionaries and they raised Caleb in Thailand while converting people to Christianity. He speaks fluent Thai, surprising for a guy who prefers drugs to learning. I never could grasp the concept of going over to a foreign country and trying to turn people into Christians, the idea is asinine. I always envisioned these tall blonde white Christians, with large blue eyes attacking small groups of indigenous people and telling them “Convert or die” in my head. I never told Caleb about my feelings, he would become depressed for sure. I can remember how easy it was to corrupt him back in Littleton. He is naive and was new to suburban life way back then. He quickly changed in to another metropolitan teenager looking to drink and try any drug once. He hasn’t changed much over the years. His parents still believe he is a good Christian boy that instills values of the religion daily. Caleb grabs my green cloth Samsonite suitcase and pulls out the cart handle. We walk quickly out the sliding exit door into the parking lot. I cant breath to well in this altitude. The fucking air is to thin. I scramble into my pockets for my cigarettes. Where the hell are they, maybe in my bag. Caleb seems to be anxious, or disturbed. I am conscious of his nervousness. He wants to get out of this airport fast. Perhaps he is illegally parked or he has a loaded weapon in his car. Maybe he just needs to smoke some more pot. I guess I could use some weed right now myself. I haven’t been high in months. Since I got high with this girl Christian on a lunch break in Chicago. Her weed wasn’t any good. Not like Colorado homegrown.
Caleb interrupts my thoughts.
“So what the fuck have you been doing man? I haven’t heard from you in a like 6 month. I almost fucking forgot you were even coming in today. Good thing you called.”
I knew he would be available. Caleb is known for never working. Caleb’s fun loving voice isn’t comforting. I still feel a sickness being back in Denver. This town knows me like an old friend, more of an enemy in my case. I already fucking hate it here. Being back for only a few minutes I can feel the tightness and tension building in my neck. The discomforts of home, a place I once called home.
“I haven’t been doing much, just working a lot. I haven’t really talked to anyone for a while, probably two or three weeks. My company has me working so much, getting ready for this huge product launch coming out in a few weeks,” I answer, still looking for my cigarettes in my backpack, I find them. They are a little crumpled but not broken.
“What have been doing?” I ask
“Getting fucked up, living off my student loans.” Caleb answers, with a grim smile on his face.
I knew he wasn’t working. When I called him to let him know I was coming into town he told me he had just gotten his newest student loan check. His ignorance will lead him to spending it all on drugs and alcohol before the semester even starts. The devastation of all the memories in my head flood over me, even Caleb’s grim smile does nothing. The realizations of being back home are setting in quickly as we approach Caleb’s truck. It is the same one he had when I left. The same truck I slept in when we were to fucked up to drive. The one we would drive to concerts in and tailgate in the back. I hate this fucking truck.
Caleb tosses my suitcase into the bed. The tail gait is bent from an accident that he never repaired. Rust is forming around the dent and the paint is faded. Faded paint like a faded memory of being new. He unlocks the doors to his truck with the remote on his keys, pointing it like a gun. What the fuck am I doing here? I keep wondering. My back is still stiff and I can feel it when I lift my body into the cab. I am getting old. I remove my backpack that is loaded with my laptop and planner. Work is never too far, though I plan to avoid it while I am here. I can’t work under the stress and pressure of being in Denver. Shelby crossing my mind constantly. Caleb’s truck still reeks of pot. I’m use to the smell, though I haven’t been around it lately. Just another typical day in Caleb’s world. He attempts to mask the smell with a blue can of air freshener but it doesn’t help. It only taints the air with a fake berry scent. I cough from the mist evaporating in my mouth. Caleb has an I-Pod hooked up through his stereo. He quickly grabs it and flips to a song I have never heard. A typical Caleb move in the typical Caleb fashion. In his truck he is the DJ. It pisses me off to the point where I hate music.
“You wanna take some rips mate?” He asks in his best Aussie accent.
“Yeah fuck it, why not”, I answer. I need to be high.
Caleb hides his pipe in a tarnished purple Crown Royal bag. Looking at the bag I remember when I did the same thing. The pipe is a dull blue with yellow streaks from the constant smoke running through it. The bowl is full of thick black resin. I want to scrape the resign out and clean the pipe. Caleb loads a bowl that smells delicious. I don’t notice any seeds and the clusters he pulls from his glass jar are fluffy and light. He hands me the pipe and a red lighter.
“It’s all you chief, you have the greens.” Caleb sounds excited.
Like he hasn’t smoked in days. I know that he has smoked at least four ties today. It’s his hobby amongst other drugs and acts of extreme insanity. I lit the cluster of greens and yellows resting in the pipe and inhale. A large cloud of smoke falls smoothly from my open mouth when I pull the pipe from my lips. I close my eyes as I start to remember the last time I had this taste, a molted ash and herb balled into one, the dryness is overwhelming. My eyes start water. I roll down the window and take a few quick breaths of the clean Colorado air. I look into the mirror mounted on the side of the door.
“So what‘s the story? Is Ian really doing it? Is he really going to marry this girl?”
The confusion of the moment leads to me to inquire on something real. I need to see myself talking in the mirror to know I am alive.
“Yeah, this mother fucker is crazy.” Caleb answers, hitting the pipe.
From where I sit I see two beautiful young girls, probably 18 or 19. They walk towards our parked position. Their faces pretending not to notice the trucks cab pouring out smoke, I can see them moving their eyes. Left to right, right to left over and over. The open window a dead give away. I hate hot boxing, so I refuse to close the window. Caleb starts his truck and pulls out of the parking space like a stunt driver, fast and reckless. My head jerks from the quick motion. Poking his head out from the window Caleb smiles to the two girls with blonde hair.
“MOTHER FUCKING GO TIME!” He yells pointing his fist in the air, an 80’s hair band playing loud through the stereo.
Their innocent faces appalled while mine smiles and laughs. Perhaps he is a stunt driver. Not that these girls give a shit.
Driving towards the city I can see the bright skyline, a sill framed fixture in Colorado. Caleb wants to stop in the city at Cody’s house, his drug dealer and a friend from high school. Cody is a bright kid he is from a rich family and still deals in the game of street pharmaceuticals. I bought my weed from him when I was living in Denver, good stuff to, few seeds and always clean. Getting high a mile high feels better then getting high anywhere else. The altitude enhances the mind, makes you want to fly away. I can remember many nights I wished I really could fly away. Sitting in my room with Shelby, smoking joints and talking about bullshit movies we watched on television. It is all but a memory now. A fucked up memory I cant let go. The road feels smooth maybe a brand new layer of tar has been placed beneath us. I look up at the night sky, it is covered in lights and I can’t see the mountains, the one thing I want to see. Caleb looks at me as he is pumped his fist out the window into the summer night, cigarette in his hand. I glance over at him. He has the mind of a child. I believe that is why I am always drawn to him. Especially now that I have grown up, an idea foreign to the blonde boy I am sitting next to. I have been incapable to fell happiness and there are no emotions of grandeur in my sights. I have become pretty good at faking it. Acting. I have simply become an actor, method actor at that. One who can see what emotions need to be portrayed and conjure them up on the spot. Like a second language, like my own secret code. I am the only translator. Deep in the pits of my brain.
“So what are we gonna do while your hear man? Get fucked up and pull as much ass as we can?” Caleb asks with his grin wide and white from his bright teeth.
He could pass as a model, an angel I am sure he has tried in bars and clubs.
I am not sure where this trip will take me but getting ass is far from my mind. I smile, my acting skills tightly in place.
“We will see where it goes.” I answer. In my head I’m thinking that I don’t want to have sex with random drunk girls I meet in dark and musty bars, but it makes Caleb smile and leaves me satisfied. The shit pouring from Caleb’s mouth is foul. I have grown up and I will be leaving him soon. His idea is typical for any man of our marital status, get drunk and get laid. Could there be anything more cliché?
“So Chicago huh? How the hell is it out there? How are the bars?” Caleb asks with the white smile still rests on his face.
I look over at him with a smile of my own and take a drag from the cigarette I have in my hand.
“Well, I haven really been going out to much the past few months, work has been killing me. The nights I have gone out are fun though. Tons of young professional ladies out on the town looking to hook up, it’s crazy. I have to say though a lot of them are fucked in the head. They try so hard to become leaders of there work places that it translates over to the nightlife. Some of them act like men some, just a one night stand and that is that.” I know that I have no frame of reference for my statement but Caleb doesn’t.
I play a game with it, pretending to know what I am talking about. He will be excited to hear that Chicago has a lot of women. Probably the only thing he heard. I throw my cigarette out of the window.
“No fucking way! That is tight JK. I will need to come visit and wear a suit and shit. I might even have to tell them I have a 401k and Life insurance! Ha!”
I knew he would want to come out and visit before it left his lips. Any place he is able to run away to, a place where no one would know him and he could create an imaginary life. I put my head out the window for a moment to get some air. The wind is nice and warm tonight. I stare into the side mirror some more, hoping Caleb will quit asking me questions and leave me the fuck alone. I’m really not excited to be here, he doesn’t realize it. I muster up the courage to ask him
“Have you seen Shelby around at all?”
I glance back towards Caleb. His smile fades.
“Yeah, I saw her a few days ago, maybe a week. I told her you were coming into town.”
“What did she say?” I must know.
“She asked for your number. I figured she would have called you by now”
“She hasn’t. How did she look.”
“Like shit, all strung out. She was wearing some baggy clothes I don’t think had showered in a few days.”
The only picture in my head is the one when she was beautiful. I’m not sure I can imagine her not in that form.
“Oh well, do you see her often?”
“Now and again. She has my cell number. I got her some pot a while back” Caleb voice changing to a more somber tone.
“Oh.” I look back out the window
I am not entirely sure that I can make it without crying or loosing my calm nature right now. I hear Caleb’s voice but I can barely make out what he is saying. All I hear is Shelby in my head. I still need to confront the emotions of home, Denver, the 303. I haven’t been here in 8 months and I imagine nothing has changed, but the surprises lurking around the corner will probably prove me wrong. The people I once knew and the ones I barley remember will arise from the shadows. They will suck me back into the war I fought daily before I left. The war I abandoned for a new life.
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Over all I liked the story, but there is one thing id like to ask about. In this portion you created a whole bunch of lines instead of a paragraph, why?
“What did she say?” I must know.
“She asked for your number. I figured she would have called you by now”
“She hasn’t. How did she look.”
“Like shit, all strung out. She was wearing some baggy clothes I don’t think had showered in a few days.”
“Yeah, I saw her a few days ago, maybe a week. I told her you were coming into town.”
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You might want to cut down the size of some of your paragraphs. For example the second paragraph is over 2 standard pages in length and the next one too.
I like that this was written in present tense, which is a difficult thing to carry. Keep that. That makes it immediate, however, you still need to get more descriptive. Get more descriptive and concrete in your images.
“tail[gate]”
Your dialogue is crisp and clean.
“[you’re here] man”
Overall the story looks like it’ll be a good one. There are difficulties for sure but nothing that a good editing can’t fix. I love the present tense you use in this piece. It gives it all an immediacy, and helps with transitions into past events with past tense. It’s difficult to hold it together and limits your choice of verb forms.
I would love to see where this piece is going.
Thanks for sharing. Good luck.
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